Chapter 89: Contract
Nox opened his eyes.
He wasn’t in the Proving Ground anymore. He was floating in an endless, empty gray space. There was no ground, no sky, just a featureless void that stretched on forever. He tried to move, but his body felt heavy and slow, like he was trapped in thick syrup.
Then he saw the eye.
It was bigger than a car, a massive orb of molten gold with a slit of a pupil that was a crack of pure darkness. The eye blinked, a slow, world-ending movement, and he realized it was attached to a face. A face covered in scales that were each the size of a dinner plate, a snout so vast he could have parked a truck inside one of its nostrils.
He was looking at a dragon.
The sheer pressure of its presence was a physical weight, crushing him from all sides. His lungs felt tight, and a cold sweat broke out on his skin. This was nothing like Fena’s power. Her power was a mountain, something ancient and unmovable. This was a universe. It was an existence so far beyond his own that his mind could barely even process it.
’W-what the hell is this overwhelming presence?’ he thought, his mind struggling to form a coherent thought.
A voice rumbled through the gray void, a sound so deep and powerful that it vibrated in his very bones.
"So, the little insect awakens."
The dragon’s massive head moved a fraction of an inch closer, and the universe seemed to tilt. Its golden eye focused on him. He felt like a bug under a magnifying glass.
"You have something of mine, human," its voice echoed, each word a peal of thunder. "Something precious. Something you could not have possibly obtained through your own meager power."